The Indian media usually seizes any opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of Indian-origin success stories.

Whether it’s Miss America, a Spelling Bee Champion, or the likely new Surgeon General, whenever a person remotely connected to India does well overseas, the country’s media is the first to single out the achiever’s Indian roots.

(Full disclosure: We at India Real Time, too, like a ‘person of Indian-origin done good story.’)

In the case of Preet Bharara, the Indian-American U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, though, the Indian media — as well as government officials — seem less keen to laud his success as the head of investigation and litigation of all criminal and civil cases brought on behalf of the U.S. in the New York area.

Mr. Bharara, who was handpicked for his position by Barack Obama, is the prosecutor in the case of the U.S. versus Devyani Khobragade the Indian diplomat arrested in New York last week over alleged visa fraud related to the employment of her domestic help, Sangeeta Richard.

Ms. Khobragade’s arrest has sparked anger in India and prompted an ongoing diplomatic row with the U.S. Ms. Khobragade has denied wrongdoing through her lawyer.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Bharara questioned why the Indian government wasn’t more concerned about the alleged ill-treatment of the domestic servant, and only focused on the heavy-handed treatment Ms. Khobragade received.

He also sought to explain why Ms. Richard’s family had been brought to the U.S. from India. “Speculation about why the family was brought here has been rampant and incorrect,” he said in the statement.

Some Indian media had reported that the family of the domestic servant traveled to the U.S. in order to obtain a Green Card.

“Some focus should perhaps be put on why it was necessary to evacuate the family and what actions were taken in India vis-à-vis them. This Office and the Justice Department are compelled to make sure that victims, witnesses and their families are safe and secure while cases are pending,” Mr. Bharara said.

In response on Thursday, Syed Akbaruddin, the spokesman for India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the statement by the U.S. Attorney was “one more attempt at a post facto rationalization for action that should never have taken place in the first place.” The only victim in the case was Ms. Khobragade, the spokesman added.

Salman Khurshid, India’s Minister of External Affairs, told news channel NDTV that there was “no need to take Preet Bharara or his comments seriously.”

English-language weekly, India Today, went a step further. It asked whether Mr. Bharara, who took up his post in August 2009, was targeting Indians.

“Before spearheading proceedings against Devyani, Bharara had hit the headlines for prosecuting ex-McKinsey MD Rajat Gupta for insider trading charges,” the magazine said on Wednesday.

Mr. Bharaha was born in 1968 in the town of Firozpur in the northern Indian state of Punjab and, according to a profile of him in the New Yorker, moved with his family to New Jersey when he was a toddler. He is the son of a Sikh father and Hindu mother who moved from Pakistan to India after the partition.

The New Yorker reported that when Mr. Bharara was interviewed at the White House for the U.S. Attorney’s job, he was asked if he had been born in India. Yes, Bharara replied. Was he a citizen of the United States, the interviewer then asked. “Damn,” Mr. Bharara said. “You’ve got to be a citizen for this job?”

During his time in the role, a position once held by Rudy Giuliani who went on to become mayor of New York, Mr. Bharara has convicted dozens of insider trading defendants. They include Sri Lankan-origin Raj Rajaratnam, who was sentenced to 11 years, and as noted by India Today, Rajat Gupta, a native of Kolkata, who gave Mr. Rajaratnam a tip-off when he the director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

But Mr. Bharara doesn’t just go after people of South Asian origin. His office secured a guilty plea from Peter Madoff for his role in his brother Bernard’s Ponzi scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney website. He has also taken on cases involving cybercrime, personal identity theft, narcotics trafficking and terrorism.

Before taking up his current role, Mr. Bharara was chief counsel and staff director of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight. He has also served as an assistant U.S. Attorney, in the Southern District.

He is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School.

Corrections and Amplifications: A previous version of this post incorrectly said that Preet Bharara was U.S. Attorney General for the Southern District of New York. He is in fact U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

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